Dose Market
Fashion, Food and more from Chicago’s River East Art Center’s monthly artisanal pop-up
Spending what little free time you have to uncover unique, handmade products on your own around Chicago may cause you to lose your mind. Fortunately, four intrepid scavengers have decided to dig up new artisanal food, design and fashion vendors and invite between 40-50 of them each month to the indoor Dose Market.
Dose, which launched in June 2011, takes place each month at the River East Art Center and draws hundreds of people seeking new foodstuffs (hot sauces, spices, small-batch tea, handcrafted bitters), design pieces (refurbished tables, wooden eyeglass frames, handmade bikes) and fashion (vintage handbags, ties, funky hats, scarves). But what’s most fun is hearing everyone talk about what they ate or found, or what they ate while they found something.
While some of the vendors may set up a booth just one time, you can often find their things online, and many others are repeat purveyors. Look for goods from vendors like Old Town Social for charcuterie and panini; Fresh & Proper unique ties; holiday wreaths from Sprout Home; Blis maple syrup; hand-dyed silk wraps from Lydia Brockman and more. We hit Dose Market’s November installment to select a few things we think you too may be pretty geeked over—see below for our picks.
Bittercube Bitters
Various flavors like cherry bark vanilla, barrel-aged blood orange and Jamaican #1 (with ginger and black pepper) slow-crafted over two months to enhance your holiday cocktails.
Drift Eyewear
Chris Mantz handcrafts these handsome wood frames with a solid steel core for added strength and durability.
Buckshot Sonny’s
Great sporting goods for the everyguy like vintage baseball mits, camo hunting jackets, beer coozies, trucker hats and more.
Shades of Grey
For the woman with perhaps slightly quirky style these unique necklaces and earrings are constructed from a combination of metals, natural materials and funky geometric hardware.
Spices of Lezzet
If your scouting trip to Turkey and India keeps falling through, you can hit up Spices of Lezzet for incredibly vibrant, exotic spices and seasonings that you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.
Method Bicycle Company
When a Trek or Cannondale just won’t do, Method Bicycles designs and builds a custom bike using top-line components, steel frames and an exacting sense of style.
All images by Nathan Michael
